“You might want to put away any sharp objects,” a university official warned parents of incoming freshmen at an orientation meeting. Direct and indirect costs of attending CMU, he said, are $21,646 for just one year.

Pardon me while I pick up my jaw again.

No, I am not picking on CMU. The story is the same everywhere. CMU just happens be the place where I know details from first-hand experience.

When I graduated in 1980, I expected to spend about $3,000 to $3,500 a year for school and the quality of life demanded by a student of my caliber (translation: bar money).

CMU tuition in my final year cost $28.50 a credit hour for Michigan residents, according to the clear memory of a friend who worked her way through college. Today tuition costs $365 a credit hour.

“Yes, Brad, you buffoon,” you may say, “but everything costs far more today than in 1980.”

This is the scary part.

Adjusting for inflation, the $3,500 a year I expected to spend (at most) for a year of college was worth $9,762 in today's dollars, not $21,646. Tuition, adjusting for inflation, cost $79.49, not $365.

To repeat, the story is the same everywhere.

Average costs of tuition and room-and-board at public universities more than doubled between 1980 and 2010, even after adjusting for inflation, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education.

Private colleges cost much more than public universities, but the rate of increase since 1980 is almost identical. Community colleges did better. After figuring for inflation, the price of community college rose “only” about 50 percent since 1980.

At this rate, it will cost $200,000, in today’s dollars, for my son’s children to earn a four-year degree from CMU 30 years from now.

This trend cannot continue. To use a buzzword, it is not sustainable.

Already we see the near extinction of students, like my friend, who work their way through college. It is virtually impossible now.

Unless something happens to stop this insanity, at some point almost every student will need grants – which the government cannot afford – or only kids of CEOs and movie stars will go to college.

That’s no laughing matter to a guy with three generations of maroon and gold in his pedigree.